Hard to believe my high school senior recital was 29 years ago this week. So long ago that I still had a third eye ("i"). John Redmer on bass, a very talented young man, now gone but not forgotten. And I wonder what Eric, Tibor and Norm are up to these days? Maybe we should do a reunion tour. I remember our faculty advisor said we were too young—hadn't experienced enough of life's ups and downs—to play "A Remark You Made" with the requisite feeling.
Are we old enough now, Mr. Lindenau?

Here are two photos of yours truly performing with the Interlochen Arts Academy jazz ensemble, taken nearly 30 years apart.

The top image is from our final "stud orch" concert at Interlochen's Corson Auditorium in Fall 1984. The bottom is from the academy's 50th anniversary tour to San Francisco's Kanbar Hall in Spring 2012.

Hard to believe that's the same person! (Even the horn has grown fat...)

Interlochen Arts Academy is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month and next with a spring series of performances and events across the country. I'm honored to be among the Academy alumni who will appear as guest soloists, along with such esteemed artists as Matt Brewer, Peter Erskine, Alexander Fiterstein, Jorja Fleezanis, Ida Kavafian, Bob Mintzer and David Shifrin. http://bit.ly/z46VOt

But how can one express the wonder of Interlochen? No one can truly translate it for others. I can only say that in a world which deals so much, for expedience's sake, in tinsel and material values, there is something fine and wholesome and splendid and altogether overwhelming in the euphony of sixteen hundred young boys and girls delighting in the wonders of great music. And a nation fortunate enough to have an arts center like Interlochen can look to the future with hope.~Van Kliburn, 1962

Toward the end of high school, I left home to attend a private boarding school in Michigan called Interlochen Arts Academy.

Interlochen was for me a magical place, populated by individualists, social misfits, and eccentrics — kids who, like me, were passionate about art.

I loved Interlochen. For the first time in my life, I was surrounded by creative people my own age: musicians, painters, actors, dancers...it was like coming home. Interlochen was where I learned the discipline required to build a life in the arts, and where I learned how rewarding an artist's life can be.